Belly up to the... museum?

Tap into any beer-fueled conversation and a variety of barroom philosophies may emerge. Chances are the ideas of Sir Thomas More won’t be among them.

But More’s philosophy of civic responsibility and social discourse outlined in his 1516 satire Utopia is a driving force for artist Meg Mitchell and her latest project at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Mitchell, an associate professor of digital media at UW-Madison, joined Octopi Brewing and design studio Art & Sons to create the “Civic Exchange Society,” whose first artistic effort is called CES-001 Juicy Return IPA. The hazy, hoppy beer is brewed in the popular New England style and packaged in interactive cans complete with sayings from More and other philosophers.

Beer, by its very nature, promotes social discourse and creates its own brand of community, says Mitchell, who describes herself as a “casual beer enthusiast.” She thinks the release of Juicy Return IPA could encourage discussion beyond the established arts community.

“Meg created a coded, two-digit alphabet and during Gallery Night on May 4, she’ll be passing out passages of text that are written in the coded language she devised,” says MMoCA curator Leah Kolb. Right below the lip of the beer can is the alphabet, and Mitchell will also be distributing a device that fits over the top of the can and enables people to decode the text.

The first three people to successfully decode their text will win a limited edition print Mitchell created.

“Art as product is part of the changing landscape, and commercial practices are becoming fair game for artists to use,” Mitchell says. “Something available in a retail context is a way to pull people into a museum who might not otherwise engage in art.”

The new project evolved from Mitchell’s 2017 MMoCA installation “Numismatic Hops Exchange: A Hop Garden for Unyielding People,” which consists of six identical aluminum beams scaling the brick wall in the museum’s rooftop sculpture garden. It’s also a living trellis system supporting a tangle of Northern Brewer hop vines, a type known for its hardiness.

Kolb likes that Mitchell’s work “doesn’t fall into one genre or category, and includes sculpture, sounds, even living things.” Mitchell calls this “4D art”; the current project’s collaborative practices and interdisciplinary approach fall into the 4D category, she says.

Hops take center stage in the current project. Some of those rooftop Northern Brewer hops are in Juicy Return, but there also are other varieties at work, according to Isaac Showaki, president of Octopi, the brewery making the beer: Wisconsin-grown Centennial, for grapefruit and lemon notes; Pacific Northwest Denali, rich in pineapple and citrus flavors; and Ella, from Australia, which adds a fruity, floral aroma with a hint of anise and grapefruit rind.

The collaborators will also release a dry cider during the summer and a dark porter is scheduled for fall to coincide with a hops harvest event in MMoCA’s rooftop sculpture garden.

The project was conceived by Mitchell in partnership with MMoCA, which acts as project facilitator, Kolb says. Both Octopi and Art & Sons, which designed the beer can art, provided pro bono support for the project’s initial stages.